Celebrity big boy, Jacob Olalekan Ponle, also known as Woodberry, has been given an eight years and three-month jail sentence by a federal judge in the United States for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar fraud.
According to court documents obtained by an online newspaper, Peoples Gazette, Ponle was sentenced on July 11 by Judge Robert Gettleman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.
Gettleman said, “The defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a total term of 100 months as to count.”
Gettleman gave Ponle instructions to present himself to the U.S. Marshal Service for transfer to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, where he would be allowed visits from his family members and his American fiancée.
The judge also stated that Ponle will be “surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for deportation immediately following his incarceration”.
The court determined that the Nigerian-born fraudster had the financial ability to repay the full payment but waived all interest on the restitution value. He will now pay seven victims a total of nearly $8 million in restitution.
On June 29, 2022, American prosecutors requested that Ponle, a.k.a. Woodberry, get a 14-year prison term for the fraud he perpetrated between January and September of that year.
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